


B V 

45 





Class 

Book 

Copigtit^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



BETHLEHEM BELLS 



BY 



B. J. HOADLEY 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 

1912 






COPYEIGHT, 1912 

Sherman, French & Company 



*/.* 



©CU328387 



TO 

HELEN— CROWNED 

WHO HEARD THE MUSIC OF 
THE BELLS OF BETHLEHEM 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

These gathered Christmas Annuals written 
by the author desiring to help others, and un- 
terrified, perhaps fortunately, by critics of 
books, are offered the public with the hope 
that Bethlehem may be seen and appreciated. 
Written a year apart from each other, what- 
ever continuity the brief chapters have is in 
the unit, and yet the author trusts the whole 
may have a better unity than of the book cov- 
ers. Robertson, Mulford, Parker and others 
forgotten have helped the writer to prepare 
these words. 

B. J. H. 

Portland, Oregon. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Christmas Greetings .... 1 

II Our Manger Gift 4 

III That Song 6 

IV Jesus Born Again 8 

V Indebted to None .... 12 

VI Only One 14 

VII Christmas Bells 19 

VIII Advent 22 

IX Can the Infinite Become Less 

Than Itself? 25 

X Why Bethlehem? .... 28 

XI The Second Creation ... 31 
XII The Son of God : A Christmas 

Study 34 

XIII The New Eden 37 

XIV The Unseen Become the Seen . 41 



CHAPTER I 
CHRISTMAS GREETINGS 

Christmas day is a bright spot in mid-win- 
ter. It is a field day for the children. I used 
to think that Santa Claus actually came down 
the chimney to fill my stockings. Keep up 
the innocent delusion of Santa Claus among 
the children. A day for present making. Sup- 
pose a child breaks to pieces his gift before the 
day ends ; it has gone into its life to live for- 
ever. God's Christmas gift to men is the child 
in the manger, and in this child, God and man 
are linked together. Mystery of mysteries ! 
Mr. Webster, asked if he could comprehend 
how God and man were blended in Jesus, re- 
plied that He could not be his Savior if he com- 
prehended the fact, for He would be no greater 
than himself. 

This true light of the world is not outside 
of God nor outside of man, but one with God 
and man. Jesus came into the world to found 
a kingdom in which fruit is not gathered into 
barns, nor victories won by battle axes. It is 
often stated that Jesus came to men to be the 
founder of a new religion. Not so. You find 
the word religion in James in the Authorized 



2 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

Version, but the better translation is ritual. 
The Bible says nothing about religion, but ev- 
erything concerning righteousness. Religion 
is men's feeling and notion about God; right- 
eousness is God's feeling and notion about 
men. India and China are religious countries 
and are filled with temples. Religion throws its 
child into the Ganges. Saul engaged in mur- 
der was religious, for he was a Pharisee after 
the straitest sect of his religion. Religious 
Jews killed Jesus. Religion depends upon cli- 
mate, soil, education and temperament ; right- 
eousness upon the revealed will of God. Re- 
ligion comes up from man, righteousness comes 
down from God. 

Jesus came not to earth to bring religion, 
for earth had too much of it. He came sound- 
ing righteousness to the ears of men, and caus- 
ing them to tingle. What kind of a man was 
Noah? A righteous man. 

Welcome, Thou Star of Bethlehem ! In Thy 
light self beholds its poverty and nakedness. 
Without Thee we are starvelings. From Thee 
we find centers, not circumferences, for our poor 
lives. Man needs not rules but principles for 
action. Rules are feet, principles the eyes 
of independence. We become brethren not be- 
cause Jesus became human, but because He be- 
came human to make us divine. He was mani- 
fested to take away our sins. Through Him 



CHRISTMAS GREETINGS 3 

we receive strength to make gifts unto God. 
Though your children give you gifts pur- 
chased with your own money, you appreciate 
them. Though your wife buys you a Christ- 
mas gift at the store and has it charged to you, 
you highly esteem it. So God appreciates our 
offerings made in the name of His dear Son. 
This Christmas gift is for us all. "That was 
the true light which lighteth every man that 
cometh into the world." Every wing can soar 
in the spiritual heaven above us, and there is 
room for all sails upon the sea of God's ever- 
lasting love. Good will not toward but among 
men. "Glory to God in the highest" means 
glory ascends to God from us. And peace 
descends to earth. "On earth peace" and 
"good will among men." 



CHAPTER II 
OUR MANGER GIFT 

The gift of Jesus Christ to us is from a 
being infinitely our superior ; it is most costly ; 
it is attended by a worthy motive ; it is to crea- 
tures unworthy of it. 

The Son given speaks words of importance 
to ears which hear, Ambassadors bring mes- 
sages worth attention. Some Ambassadors 
voice war, others peace. Our Christmas Am- 
bassador brings peace to a world that will have 
it through surrender of unholy weapons of 
war. 

He took ourselves upon Himself. In His 
human blood was the flow of Tamar, Rahab 
and Bathsheba. Yea, He took with Himself a 
step down to make a step up. 

He was always in the world made by Him. 
He wrestled with Jacob and with drawn sword 
stood before Joshua. 

Two worlds made the gift ours. In the one 
below were expectation and preparation, from 
the one above announcement of angels who 
though not comprehending the song of tri- 
umph they sang, gave the song to the ages to 
prolong. The song intended to be heard in 



OUR MANGER GIFT 5 

heaven overflowed down to Bethlehem and time. 

He was born a child. To find the world's 
speech it is necessary to start with the cradle. 

He was divine. This Ambassador is of the 
highest rank. While only the human the 
world has seen, yet His dignity is that of God. 
On His face, that of the King, rests the maj- 
esty of empire. 

No wonder He is the light of the world. The 
candle lights a room, the street lamps keep 
darkness from a city, but the sun makes day 
in a world. Shine on, Son of Righteousness ! 



CHAPTER III 

THAT SONG 

The birth of a Savior in the City of David 
made the angels break out into song. While 
music on earth ascends to heaven it is also 
true, that melody in heaven descends to earth. 
All things were ready for the Advent. The 
law had taught school for two thousand years, 
and the schoolmaster was ready to give oyer 
his pupils to the born Redeemer. Authority 
had dropt its sway upon human hearts. A 
monarchy precedes a republic. 

All hail this messenger from a land where 
there is no death ! In the light of Bethlehem 
we discover why death is of so little concern 
to God. All deaths are nothing, when we 
read in letters of fire upon the sky, "I am the 
resurrection and the life." By the gate of in- 
carnation we enter broader worlds. 

All hail Him room-maker ! He takes no room 
even to be born from us, but he makes more 
room for us to be and do. 

All hail Him peace-bringer ! But a sword 
before peace He brings. The earth is torn 
into pieces by the frosts of winter that it may 
laugh over waving harvests. But righteous- 
ness makes peace. 

6 



THAT SONG 7 

Hail Him love-incarnate! There is power in 
wind, fire, water, earth, and sky, but not the 
power of love. Instead of giving us a defini- 
tion of love, He illustrates it in Himself. A 
person may read a description of a train of 
cars, and he may see with his own eyes the 
twentieth century on wheels. Through Him 
we too may incarnate love, and thus have 
snatches of song which indicate the fuller music 
when we go back to Him whose name is Love. 

Yes, that day, a Savior was born over there, 
a Redeemer from sin to be a Christ, the 
Anointed, and also Lord. There is but one 
way to receive a Savior — viz., by birth. He 
will come that way until time is ended. 



CHAPTER IV 

JESUS BORN AGAIN 

Christmas brings before the mind of the 
Christian world the thought of the "manger," 
the "Babe," and the "Child." We joyously 
again with the return of mid-winter contem- 
plate the gift of both earth and heaven to man, 
and prolong the song begun by angels. If 
angels shouted with rapture over the Advent of 
one not their Redeemer, shall men be mute as 
they turn their eyes afresh to the Incarnation? 
Jesus honored woman in becoming her Son. He 
became a man, humanity's perfect flower, by 
being born of a woman. Every Christian 
mother, therefore stands in a relation to the 
Bethlehem gift no man can hope to realize. 
Let us not forget the human in the great Christ- 
mas gift unto us. Jesus is divine, therefore 
he reaches God ; Jesus is human, therefore he 
reaches us. Thinking of Jesus only as the 
equal with God — as God himself — we lose him 
in the mysteries that gather around the great 
white throne. Seeing him as part of ourselves, 
He still reigns upon the earth upon which we 
place our weary feet. Come back once more to 
the manger ; behold the Babe and the Child ! 

He is our brother. 

8 



JESUS BORN AGAIN 9 

The gift came noiselessly to men. So the 
sunbeams come silently trooping through the 
spaces to cheer this earth of rocks and storms. 
The great forces of the universe do not thunder 
their ceaseless activities. 

The announcement of the angels was made to 
men of occupation — shepherds. Moses kept 
the flock of Jethro ; David fed his father's 
sheep ; Amos was among the herdmen of 
Tekoa; Jesus became the "Good Shepherd," 
to know and lead the flock. Appropriately 
to shepherds spake the angelic voices. The 
magi followed the star that put them upon 
their knees by the side of the child. Science 
leads up to the Christ. Astronomy has killed 
superstition, and the sweep of the heavens has 
added to the devotion of men. No true astron- 
omer can part company with Him whose hand 
guides the worlds sailing in the great deeps 
around us. And He, the mighty God, must be 
God-manifest unto us. This is the true de- 
mand of science. The chief of the great dis- 
coverers in the realm of science have been 
Christians. Some scientists have been indefi- 
nite and skeptical with reference to things un- 
seen. It is only a small portion of the science 
of our day that is disloyal to the New Testa- 
ment and its story of the child Jesus. All truth 
is welcome to kneel at the manger, for Jesus is 
the truth. Jesus promises to lead human 



10 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

minds into all truth. Astronomers, geologists, 
philosophers, and all men of learning and in- 
ventive power, do their best work when God's 
thoughts expand their souls and enlarge their 
horizons. 

The incarnate Christ satisfies the wisest and 
the most ignorant peoples. Greece searched 
for beauty, and in stream, grove, sky, temple 
and man, she found it. Plato was as much a 
poet as a philosopher, for beauty made his 
disquisitions music. Is there no beauty in the 
King? Is there not grace as well as strength 
in the central figure of the ages? Rome asked 
for honor, valor, and in her best days was a 
nation of pure homes. What honor, what 
bravery, belongs to the soldier who is every 
inch a Christian ! Will the name of Havelock 
be forgotten as long as the words honor and 
valor shall endure? Does Jesus bring purity 
to the home? The purest woman that lives 
may find inspiration in her life in Jesus. The 
most vicious peoples of the earth have known 
what it is to be humane at least to friends. But 
Jesus came to earth to make men love their 
foes. He died pleading with the Father to 
forgive those who crucified him, for they knew 
not what they did. 

He came at the right moment ; from a pre- 
pared bud the flower came forth to fill the world 
with fragrance. The law trained God's people 



JESUS BORN AGAIN 11 

to reverence authority, and by ritual and sol- 
emn performance the way was made for the 
king of whom Moses and the prophets wrote. 

After birth, development! But the condi- 
tions of historical development were not favor- 
able to the product seen in Jesus of Nazareth. 
Narrow Galilee, bitter Judea, and disciples 
blinded by their own worldliness, presented only 
hampering obstacles to the making of the 
matchless man. ,He became the brother of all 
men. The distinctions between Jew and Gen- 
tile, Greek and barbarian, vanished before His 
coming. Caste is still maintained even at this 
hour, but it is doomed. 

And so, as Jesus is born again, the brother- 
hood idea emerges from the low levels of self- 
ishness, the bitter hate of our hearts perishes, 
and we are glad and grateful. Hail, Thou Mes- 
senger, bringing to us news of a better coun- 
try and the glory of God's thoughts for us ! 
Thou art the Prince of Peace, although Thou 
bringest a sword. No peace without the sword ! 
The ground is torn to pieces by the frosts of 
winter and by the moving ploughs, that wav- 
ing harvests may fill cribs and barns with 
plenty. The surgeon cuts, that he may heal. 
By heroic treatment men are cured. After the 
storm, blessed calm ; tears to-day, but smiles 
to-morrow. 



CHAPTER V 

INDEBTED TO NONE 

Jesus is the world's model for imitation. 
He is the true original, owing nothing to the 
ages back of Him, or to the life around Him. 
It has been said of great men that they are 
either the product of their own age, or the 
happy anticipation of the next. Jesus was 
neither. He inherited nothing. He borrowed 
nothing. He came to teach, not to be taught. 
The best lawyers and physicians are constantly 
on the hunt for authority. Emerson, who 
seems to be original, gives us in all his in- 
teresting messages old thoughts in new dress, 
thoughts he has taken from thinkers of all 
ages. Goethe said: "Even the greatest gen- 
ius would make but little way if he were to 
create and construct everything out of his 
mind." Many a brilliant gem in speech has 
been stolen. But Jesus consulted no authority 
and read no books. He spoke with authority, 
has set in motion thousands of pens, has inspired 
thousands of orators, and has become the pulse 
of thousands of prayer meetings. His Bible 
was nature, and He instilled new sweetness into 

the flowers, and life into the fountains of water 
12 



INDEBTED TO NONE 13 

and new charms into the songs of birds. 
Streets, fields and seas were voiced into his 
service. He dropped acorns of truth into the 
soil of the centuries to become sturdy growths 
to baffle the tempests of time. 

The true original begins his kingdom within 
and reaches the circumference from the center. 
Jesus of Nazareth did not strike at slavery 
from the outside. He left in human bosoms 
principles whose silent movement has liberated 
slaves, and which will yet free every captive. 
Then let earth continue the song begun in 
heaven, "Glory to God in the highest, and on 
earth peace, good will toward men." 

The law of natural selection may obtain in 
physical organism, but to develop a mind is 
needed a force other than the selfish law seen 
in the lower constructions. Jesus introduced 
a new law — the law of love — to make character. 
To work this law one man with even God is 
not enough. Man must have a fellow man, 
and learn to live in peace with a human neigh- 
bor. Let strife be left with tigers, and let 
love transform us into citizens of peace. The 
more people we meet the better, for we may 
resist temptations appealing to selfishness and 
have more neighbors, and thus illustrate that 
no man liveth unto himself. 



CHAPTER VI 
ONLY ONE 

There have been four great poets: Homer, 
Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe ; four great 
historians : Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, and 
Gibbon ; four great novelists : Scott, Dickens 
Thackeray, and George Eliot ; four great phi- 
losophers : Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, and Kant ; 
four great orators : Demosthenes, Cicero, Web- 
ster, and Gladstone ; four great generals : Alex- 
ander, Caesar, Hannibal, and Napoleon ; four 
great statesmen: Pericles, Pitt, Washington, 
and Bismarck ; four great preachers : Paul, 
Luther, Wesley, and Spurgeon ; but there is 
only one Jesus Christ. 

There was nothing in His surroundings to 
make Jesus. A great human actor needs not 
only to be an original force, but to touch con- 
ditions to awaken him to think, to will, to do. 
The parentage of Jesus was found in Joseph 
and Mary, who were surprised at the independ- 
ence of their Son, who said, "I must be about 
my Father's business." At the age of only 
twelve He became the teacher of teachers. 
No renowned schools He attended, and He was 

the pupil of no illustrious teachers. No great 
14 



ONLY ONE 15 

libraries, such as bless our own great, living 
century, swung their doors open to Him. The 
land in which He was born was only Palestine, 
obscure in geography and in political impor- 
tance, a land that never distinguished itself in 
art, literature, discovery and deed. He was 
not a traveler, scarcely ever out of the 
place of His nativity. Though a Jewish prod- 
uct, He was not confined within the narrow 
limits of His own people, but was world-wide 
in His sympathies. While Jews regarded all 
spiritual privileges theirs, Jesus took them to 
all men. The Jews called people other than 
themselves Gentiles. Jesus welcomed them as 
His brethren. 

The ministry of Jesus was one only of three 
brief years, yet those three years have recon- 
structed the ages. At the age of only thirty- 
three years He died. A well-preserved man 
finds his best years of productiveness between 
the ages of forty-five and sixty-five. The 
ministry of the only one Jesus was obscure — 
it attracted no attention outside the narrow 
limits within which He spoke. There have been 
many voices spoken in America that have been 
heard across the sea. 

The poverty surrounding the only one Jesus 
was the climax of poverties. The foxes have 
holes, the birds have nests ; but the Son of Man 
had not where to lay His head. The one who 



16 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

spoke by the word of His power the worlds into 
their shining pathways, the one who filled the 
mountains with gold and silver to become the 
money of men was born in abject poverty, and 
never emerged from it. Why this poverty? 
Purpose gives significance to action. The toil 
of a workman for wife and children throws a 
golden splendor into dusty workshop and upon 
blackened hands and face and soiled clothes. 
What was the purpose back of the poverty 
of Jesus? To make us rich. That purpose 
goldens my life and the life of yours. Poverty 
is a sign of danger. A crew of starving men 
do not look with benevolence upon one another. 
Poverty makes hunger, and hunger turns, 
may be, a saint into a villain. Jesus came to 
lift us above poverty that we are to fear as 
we would pestilence. The white Christ is help- 
ing man the world over to exorcise the demon 
of poverty, to put raiment upon his naked 
body, food on his desolate table, and money into 
his empty purse. The purpose is to make us 
also rich toward God. 

We leave dollars, thank God! in the world; 
the world needs them; but we take ourselves 
into eternity. Old Cornelius Vanderbilt, dying, 
said: "William, I leave you $75,000^000; 
wife, I leave you $25,000,000"; but he could 
not leave himself; so, turning to the wall, he 
said : "Wife, sing, 'Come, ye sinners, poor and 



ONLY ONE 17 

needy.' " ,He became poor, the only one Jesus, 
to pour wealth into us. 

The world has seen but one perfect friend- 
ship ; it was in the only one Jesus. At the be- 
ginning Jesus found but one friend, Simeon, 
who, having taken into his arms the light of 
the world, went up to glory. But he became 
the friend of humanity — a friend that sticketh 
closer than a brother, and first taught the les- 
son man has not yet learned, that it is more 
blessed to give than to receive. This sub- 
lime friendship may be called love ; the world 
never before had seen it defined by example, 
for what the Greeks and Romans called love was 
but the sensuous. He put a sublime estimate 
not only upon the soul, but upon the whole 
body of man. He pitied them who sinned and 
rejected Him, and looked with compassion upon 
ruined human nature, and loving that which was 
lost He made it possible to re-enter Paradise. 
Dying of a broken heart, He put the crowning 
mark upon that wonderful friendship. 

What think ye of the peace only the one gives 
to troubled hearts? His peace does not waste 
away ; losses and bereavements do not consume 
it. Not a dead peace such as is found in the 
cemetery; but a living peace that converts 
houses into homes, earth into heaven, is the 
peace that passeth all understanding. The 
master said one day to a smiling mother, "Give 



18 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

me the jewel that shines upon jour bosom." 
"Not so," she replied. The master said: 
"With you this jewel may be lost; but with me 
it will not be lost. Thine is mine." So the 
child went up to heaven; but peace came down 
to an aching bosom. And so Amen to Beth- 
lehem. 



CHAPTER VII 
CHRISTMAS BELLS 

The first great event in history is creation, 
the bringing order out of chaos ; the second is 
like unto it, the birth of Jesus Christ. The 
second event found humanity in confusion, and 
it purposes to bring harmony from the discord 
found in humanity. Jesus comes by birth to 
man, and He will continue thus to come until 
the end of time. 

The errand of Jesus Christ to man is to 
found a kingdom of love, by illustrating love 
in Himself. The world had heard of love be- 
fore the Advent of Jesus Christ, but had never 
seen it. This kingdom of love welcomes within 
it the saved man. Science and philosophy are 
welcome to kneel at the cross, but they are not 
the cross. In saving man, Jesus Christ fits 
man unto Himself; that is, the man is to fall 
into line with the Christ, and not the Christ 
with the man. The eye was made for the light, 
but not before the light. 

The new power earth receives in the gift of 
the manger is the one-man power. The one- 
man power is all right, if we have the right 

kind of man. This man Christ Jesus permits 
19 



20 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

no rival to share the throne with Him. He is 
the root of the tree, the fountain of the river, 
the base of the pillar, the soul of the body, the 
sun of the world. 

Regeneration comes before reformation. Re- 
member, reformation calls for no new material, 
takes what it finds, and puts it into new forms, 
and gives it new uses. Regeneration changes 
the material itself. It transmutes iron into 
silver, and brass into gold. No culture can 
convert a thistle into the lily of the valley. 

The King makes one man better than an- 
other. It is said, "One man is as good as an- 
other." That depends who the other is. In 
Christ man has consideration for the person 
who knifes him, sacrifices for the knifer, and is 
full of chivalry to the despoiler. "Say, what 
can Chloe want? She wants a heart." The 
elect man conducts his business affairs on the 
line of integrity, and puts pious frauds under 
his feet. Even in the man who swears and 
drinks, honesty is a bright spot, the gold in the 
warp and woof of his life. He tells no white 
lies, for all lies are as black as perdition. 
With the King, man treats decently his wife 
and children, and woman bids good-bye to a 
nagging, scolding tongue. Remember the 
manger where Jesus was born, we are kind to 
the lower animals. With the King, not phys- 
ical but moral courage we put in its proper 



CHRISTMAS BELLS 21 

place. We give to a cause when it needs help, 
and we are courteous to all men. If success 
comes to a man better than another, it hum- 
bles him. If others succeed more than we, it 
is mean to be secretly distressed, and to deli- 
cately suggest how success was won. If others 
fail or fall, our heads are brought low, for 
their defeats are ours. 

The world needs the birth of Jesus Christ. 
Make room for Him in the newspaper, in the 
kitchen and in the Senate chamber. Make 
room for Him in labor and capital, and their 
conflict is ended. Make room for Him if we 
would do as well as be. Better be broken into 
a thousand pieces by ocean's wave, than rot 
down in the harbor of inglorious case. The 
old dog sleeps away summer hours under the 
tree, but work is our satisfaction. Character 
may have Mary's devotion and Martha's busy 
hands. 



CHAPTER VIII 
ADVENT 

Advent of whom? He who came unto us is 
the root and offspring of David. Root indi- 
cates superiority to David; in fine, divinity 
without which our Christmas gift is of no 
worth to us. David was rooted in the Lord, 
and our Lord said, "Before Abraham, I am." 
I welcome an arm extended toward me that is 
omnipotent enough to lift my feet out of the 
mire and put them on the highway of holiness. 

Offspring of David means descended from 
David. Humanity is there in that Christmas 
gift. We do not think enough of the human- 
ity in Jesus Christ. Because Jesus was a man 
He fell asleep on the vessel on Gennesaret dur- 
ing day-time. Because He was a man labor so 
exhausted His physical nature that His sleep 
was so profound that wave and tempest did not 
disturb Him. Indeed, it took the whisper of 
distress to reach His ear and cause the man to 
awake the God. 

He who came unto us is the bright and 
morning star. When this day-star arose in 
the eastern sky all the wild beasts of super- 
stition and iniquity skulked back into darkness 
23 



ADVENT 23 

where they belong. Nothing is like light in 
protecting a city. The electric lights are the 
best policemen of a town. "Hail, holy light !" 

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy 
cometh in the morning." 

A star led the wise men of the East to the 
Mother and the Child within the manger. Not 
an angel, but a star, with which the Magi were 
more conversant, led them on to Bethlehem. 
"And the Gentiles shall come to thy light." In 
the manger cradle was a Redeemer for all men. 
Paul said to the Ephesians, "Now therefore ye 
are no more strangers and foreigners, but fel- 
low citizens with the saints, and of the house- 
hold of God." Jesus could die at Jerusalem, 
but not there was He born. Humble Bethle- 
hem was the spot, not the capital. 

The angels with which the Jewish shepherds 
were familiar, not a star, appeared unto these 
men of occupation. What did they sing? 
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
peace, good will toward men." Here is the 
sum and substance of the Gospel of the Son of 
God. My life may be "Glory to God" because 
I am about my Father's business in taking 
light to some dark corner of the earth. But 
while I give glory to God, His alone, I reserve 
peace to myself. In all my ups and downs I 
may have a peace that throws a golden light 
upon a thousand struggles. I may have good 



24 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

will learned at the manger toward them who 
wrong me. 

The morning stars sung the first creation, 
but the angels sang the second creation. The 
song begun in heaven shall be wedded to 
eternity. 



CHAPTER IX 

CAN THE INFINITE BECOME LESS 
THAN ITSELF? 

I think so. It does in the birth at Bethle- 
hem. By being born, Jesus partook of the 
limitations of the human. His life was at a 
time and place which imparted to Him some- 
thing of their marks, and there were some 
things Jesus said He did not know, which asser- 
tion indicates His renunciation of omniscience, 
in fine, his self-limitation comes out of his self- 
emptying. When the Infinite can not become 
finite, it ceases to be infinite. Incarnation is 
the word, and divine immanence is other than 
that, and no more can be displaced by it, than 
evangelism by ethics, death by sacrifice, and 
faith by spirituality. Bethlehem stands for 
incarnation, God made flesh. The simplicity 
of the call to sinners shamed, defeated, and in 
need of deliverance, is so deep at the beginning 
— Bethlehem, and the end — Calvary, that no 
man can fathom it. Immanence is seen only in 
creation, but Jesus the Lord is uncreated. 

We know but few things, but we see Jesus 
at the manger, not only in the limitation of 

humanity, but also God-disclosed. He was the 

25 



26 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

Son of God, as we by grace become the sons of 
God. He was not a rival of God, but the 
very God-head, taking the place by the side of 
the Father He had ever held and thus divinely 
starts all true progression. Rationalism be- 
gins with the world, but the Gospel with the 
Word, and thus the Gospel stands for grasp 
and swing of faith, grace the eternal wonder of 
heaven, and holiness that has in it the heart 
beat of God. 

God-man, a contradiction? Well, we have 
learned to prize contradictions, and to see in 
them the expression of the most important 
truths. We work out our own salvation, that 
is ourselves, and God worketh in us to will and 
do, and that is not ourselves. To follow 
Jesus Christ is slavery and freedom, chained 
and loose, but we follow, and the contradiction 
helps us on. 

But there is a deeper incarnation than that 
of Bethlehem. There is no salvation in the 
manger or virgin-birth, and no deliverance 
from sin in the metaphysics of the union of two 
natures in Jesus Christ. It is not far from 
Bethlehem to Calvary, where a wounded heaven 
asserted its supremacy, and where honor as- 
saulted by rebels, lifted its head. The cross 
became the true throne, before which Bethle- 
hem and even Resurrection morning bow. Yes, 
a throne, a throne of judgment out of which 



INFINITE LESS THAN ITSELF? 27 

the judgment of the last day flows as an inci- 
dent. I am judged there at Mount Calvary — 
there my justification is settled and decided. 
Therefore, we who really see the cross the ful- 
fillment of Bethlehem, are not a company of 
kind people but of holy people, our virtues are 
not domestic, but the fruit of the Spirit, we are 
a converted people, not educated, and our con- 
versation is in heaven. He was made flesh, and 
also sin. 



CHAPTER X 
WHY BETHLEHEM? 

To give us the Word, which was before 
manger-birth, which was with God, in fine, 
which was God. 

The outcome of Bethlehem is to manifest 
God. This is not unthinkable, to be other- 
wise is unthinkable. If God is manifest in His 
Son then He is knowable. The world was 
standing on its tip-toe in expectation of the 
Redeemer. 

"What sound is it I hear ascending through 
the dark? The tumultuous noise of the na- 
tions. Their rejoicings and lamentations. 

The pleading of their prayer. The groans 
of their despair, the cry of their imprecations. 

Their wrath, their woe, their hate. 

Surely the world doth wait, the coming of 
its Redeemer." 

Bethlehem gave us human flesh to dwell as 
the Son of Man among us. 

"Like as a man He trod on earthly soil, 

He bore each pang, and strove in weary toil, 
He spoke with human words, with pity sighed, 
Like us He mourned and feared and died." 

Life to us comes. Who bridges the gulf be- 

28 



WHY BETHLEHEM? 29 

tween death and life? Jesus only. He is not 
a creed, which is only an empty bucket half- 
way down to the water of life. In that life is 
light which the darkness does not catch. He 
opens blind eyes and they see. See what? 
Themselves, what they are and what they may 
be. If persons plunge and rear like wild 
horses, they may see obedience to tame them. 
They see the other rooms than here. "In my 
Father's house are many mansions." They 
are guests now in their Father's house to enter 
other rooms. 

Bethlehem summons us to receive its gift. 
Still many do not receive the gift. A gift is 
not ours until we take it. It was Hector who 
was not known by his own child. 

"Thus as he spoke, Great Hector stretched his arms, 
To take his child ; but back the infant shrank, 
Crying, and sought his nurse's sheltering breast, 
Scar'd by the barren helm and horse-hair plume, 
That noddest fearful on the warrior's crest." 

Who is among us? It was years ago the 
son of Victoria, whose true crown she ever wore, 
was that of true womanhood. There is an- 
other Son of a woman among us, but He is also 
the Son of God. We may lay our heads upon 
His bosom; we cannot touch the hem of His 
garments from the fact His robe was destroyed 
by His enemies. 



30 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

Love meets love. There are a thousand eyes 
of night, one eye there is of day. So at sun- 
down dark begins. The mind has a thousand 
eyes ; one eye there is of the heart. When love 
goes down, then it is night. 



CHAPTER XI 
THE SECOND CREATION 

The first man is Adam, the second is the 
Lord from heaven. In Him we discern all moral 
good not obtained in the manner we indeed do 
win as we move on toward perfection by strug- 
gle and scars received in battle, but put within 
Him by His own eternal nature. A super- 
natural Christ we worship in the manger. 

Creative products are seen coming before our 
observation at one leap, as in the coming of 
the animal, and man himself, created in the im- 
age of God. So it is with the God-man. 

Greece lives in Plato, Rome in Cassar, 
America in Washington, England in Gladstone, 
Germany in Bismarck, Italy in Cavour, and 
humanity finds its supreme in Jesus Christ. 
All other representations are but incomplete, 
and compared with our Lord are as the little 
hills around Rainier, Mount Hood, or Shasta. 

Great things took place before the Lord 
came to us. The world had been getting ready 
for the manger-birth for four thousand years. 
A fore-runner in the strange and earnest man 
of the wilderness had been heard by eager multi- 
tudes, and the great three, Peter, John and 
31 



32 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

Paul, were at hand, to erect a great kingdom 
after Jesus was gone from us. 

It was not necessary for Jesus to have evil 
within Himself to overcome to be what He was, 
for evil does not make evil. The first thing 
man is to do to be honest is to put away dis- 
honesty. Dishonesty is no likeness to honesty. 

Other teachers than the Man of Galilee 
have had to be helped themselves, but our 
helper says to us, "Which of you convinceth me 
of sin?" He made a prayer for us, we utter, 
but that prayer was not His ; He left it to be 
ours. The true Lord's prayer was offered un- 
der the shadow of the cross. 

He is ours. Our Father, when we cease to 
be the children of Satan, ours to make a 
brotherhood of flesh itself welcome the brother- 
hood of the Spirit, for men become brothers 
when they come out of sin which pulls us apart 
from one another, and ours to make the world 
a stepping-stone to purity, righteousness and 
heaven. 

Rome robbed people to pay the expenses 
of her imperial rule, moderns are despoiling 
nature to make things go, but Jesus is born 
that we may have life, and have it more abun- 
dantly. He does not share our pain and bur- 
den, but takes them all. He strengthens the 
climbing footsteps of all who trust Him. Sure- 



THE SECOND CREATION 33 

ly, Bethlehem spreads the dawn upon the moun- 
tains. No wonder Christinas renews the youth 
of the dying year. 



CHAPTER XII 
THE SON OF GOD 

A CHRISTMAS STUDY 

There is a disposition not difficult to discern 
at the present hour, to eliminate from human 
belief the idea of the miraculous birth of Jesus 
Christ, and instead of God the Father of the 
Son, we are to affirm Joseph to be the Father 
of Jesus of Nazareth. In fine, Jesus is only 
the son of man. This destructive criticism is 
far-sighted, and knows if the first stronghold 
of Christian faith and doctrine is dislodged, 
other fortresses will fall, such as the Resurrec- 
tion of the man of Galilee, and His Ascension 
to Heaven, and the return at Pentecost. All 
is to be put upon the level of the natural, and 
good-bye to the supernatural. As gladly as 
we all welcome the thought of the Immanence 
of God, that is God abiding constantly within 
His works, instead of the works set in move- 
ment, and God withdrawn — the hard and fast 
mechanism of deistic speculation — and mak- 
ing plain to human intelligences, His omnipres- 
ence, we are to remember God's Transcendence 
to His works and that there is danger in our 
thought of sinking the supernatural into the 
34 



THE SON OF GOD 35 

natural. If all is natural there is no super- 
natural, and if all is general there is nothing 
special. Or, put it this way : If all God's 
acts are special, there is nowhere a special, and 
if all is miraculous what can be miraculous? 
If we think that we are thus bringing God very 
near to us, we are deluded, for we put God far, 
far away from us, and we lose the doctrine of 
an over-ruling Providence, and prayer loses its 
joy. He who would overthrow the immaculate 
conception of Jesus Christ would sweep away 
every miracle recorded upon the pages of the 
New Testament. 

The Christian Church still reverently affirms, 
"Born of the Virgin Mary," and before that, 
"who was conceived by the Holy Ghost," and 
will keep on repeating those words until time 
is wedded to eternity. 

Jesus the incarnate ! Simply God in a hu- 
man body? That would be taking unto himself 
but a part of man, and the minor part, and 
would be no more God become a man than the 
body alone would make a Pericles or a Lincoln. 
Incomprehensible this? Yes. But it does not 
contradict reason, for if it would do so, away 
with a belief in it. Accept nothing that is 
contrary to reason, but it is a mere assumption 
to say being above reason is against it. Here 
is a human spirit — a diamond — and a human 
body — copper — see how they beautifully blend 



36 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

into one masterpiece upon feet and looking up 
to the stars, the fact bewilders reason and does 
not oppose it. A thousand times nay ! 

He who was born at Bethlehem passed 
through infancy, childhood, youth and man- 
hood, battled with the enemy, had favor with 
men, and was hated by them, developed in His 
humble soul life as others advance, but remem- 
ber, O my soul, He was perfect in all this ad- 
vance, and did not learn perfection by passing 
through error. Remember He was a perfect 
humanity in an unbroken forwardness to sum- 
mon humanity to its lost integrity and to a 
most glorious restoration. Let the bells of 
Bethlehem ring in our matchless Christ. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE NEW EDEN 

It is found at Bethlehem; for with the birth 
in the manger a new light purpled the sky. 
Jesus was born in Judea, a land to which all 
other lands came. The whole East had strug- 
gled for Palestine, and so the Hebrew had gone 
into all tongues. Judaism had been lifted out 
of the mire of the Nile. Two Dispersions, that 
of the East and that of the West, had taken 
place. The Septuagint had put the sacred 
oracles in the polished Greek language, and 
both the Jewish and Gentile worlds had long 
ripened into the fruit of Christianity. Rome 
was mistress of the world, and when the birth 
of Christ conquered Rome, her power was 
turned Godward. 

Bethlehem is as old as God; for Jesus was 
born before sin had a beginning. The golden 
link between earth and sky was forged in the 
thought of God before the worlds were spoken 
into their pathways. But Bethlehem made the 
thought an incarnation. 

It was a man who was born. Behind Him 

were the defiled generations of men, and some 

of His human ancestors have no honored place 
37 



38 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

in the memories of mankind. Why such a de- 
filed ancestry? Why such lives behind Him? 
To gather into His own veins the poisoned 
blood of the impure, and to remain pure Him- 
self, becomes a Savior. Though unfallen, 
Jesus was a man. As a man, He longed for. 
companionship ; and hence the twelve disciples, 
a complete representation of varied humanity. 
He sorrowed, became angry, hungered ; and His 
dying cry was that of thirst. As a man, He 
learned by suffering obedience ; and, aside from 
the pain seen in atonement, may be seen that 
connected with the development of His spotless 
character. Jesus Christ's life was an unfold- 
ing. All great lives develop and expand. No 
human characters are made in this world with- 
out heart-ache and heart-break. The whole 
human history of Jesus has never been written. 
Each evangelist has given us, in the New 
Testament, only some aspect of his history. 

Divinity stooped down to Bethlehem and to 
the world. We may regard Jesus, upon the 
Divine side, a work of love, a wonder to men, 
a power of himself, and a sign. It was not the 
garment he wore that healed, but the God in 
the man. The Church and its sacraments are 
but the garments of Jesus. It is the mighty 
God who saves. Christ in His divinity brings 
man to God and to repentance, and not to 
repentance and to God. He forgives and wel- 



THE NEW EDEN 39 

comes sinners. Law never surrenders ; it 
grinds us all to powder. Grace meets law; 
and so great things take place. The greatest 
event that occurs on earth is the passage of a 
soul from darkness into light. Never mind if 
the earth does not see and record it. The 
heart smites itself, and finds relief because 
Jesus is born within its domain. 

Brahmanism says nature is God, and be true 
to nature; Buddhism says, human wills make 
rest; Confucianism says, obey moral law, and 
you are saved; Mohammedanism says, be care- 
ful to know your accountability to God ; Juda- 
ism says, sacrifice kills sin ; but Christianity 
says, salvation comes to men by Jesus Christ. 
Everywhere but in Christianity man saves him- 
self. All other teachers but Jesus Christ 
affirm that we are defiled from without. 

Jesus forgave sin, not sins, and hence he 
had no patience with Peter in his count of hu- 
man offenses. He taught the Fatherhood of 
God and the brotherhood of men. Hence we 
esteem the worth of man the world around. If 
men are lost, they are the lost children of God. 

Bethlehem means victory in death. It does 
not exalt our estimate of ourselves to detect 
our energies declining and an open grave in 
our pathways. All the cheer there is, He who 
created all things is our living Redeemer. 
Then, there is the daring leap of faith, 



40 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

as well as the sitting of humanity at His feet. 

In that gift God gave Himself. The soldier 
gives his skill in battle to his native land, the 
poet his immortal verse, the sailor his victory 
of the wave, and the sculptor his chiseled mar- 
ble. We give what we are and what we make to 
others. All God had to give us is love. It is 
indeed all. 

Glory to God, one perfect man has been 
this way ! He never broke down. At that 
time, when Jesus in His development as a man, 
realized fully the power of Divinity that was 
His, He did not yield to the temptation to de- 
base His equipment by doing the unworthy. 
He said that bread-winning is not the end of 
man, when asked to convert stones into bread. 
He would not cast Himself down to show that 
He was the Son of God. Though Napoleon 
loved Josephine, he divorced her from himself 
for his own glory. All hail, Thou Conqueror 
from Bethlehem ! He was among us. At first 
He was neglected, then stared at, and finally 
was put to death. "He came unto his own, 
and his own received him not." 

The light that comes through his wounds, 
is the true light which lighteth every man that 
cometh into the world. All His scars are 
precious to the pure. 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE UNSEEN BECOME THE SEEN 

In the birth of Jesus Christ eternities 
dropped into time. Man surely must have an 
image to part company with the dissatisfac- 
tion that arises from the contemplation of the 
purely abstract. Plato delighted in abstrac- 
tions ; but the majority of people are not drawn 
toward the incomprehensible and the unseen. 
Hence God manifests Himself in the birth of 
His Son. By the aid of the sunbeam we look 
up to the king of day. Jesus Christ is the light 
with which we see God. The God-incarnate is 
the necessity of the ages that flow into eternity. 
Man is a spirit living in a body ; in Jesus 
Christ God abides in humanity. 

The Bethlehem gift contains all the con- 
tent of heaven to illustrate God is love. The 
mother who gives her only son to fight the bat- 
tles of his country surely loves her country. 
There will be no more manger births. 

The words of the God-man born among us 
are more to us than what he did. Works are 
subordinate to words, as we read the New 
Testament story. The record is a brief one. 
Many books Carlyle gave the world to teach 
41 



42 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

it silence. But all Jesus said when this way 
is held by a few pages. Those few words are, 
however, all that time and eternity need to be 
spoken. 

He spoke with the utmost simplicity. There 
are no labored disquisitions in His teachings. 
How often we try to follow a philosopher, and 
close his book and ask, What does he mean? 
Great thoughts love simplicity of expression. 
Ornamentation did not characterize His speech, 
and thus to draw attention from His thought 
to the beauty of His expression. We sometimes 
hear be jeweled language, and, in admiration 
and analysis of figures, receive no real message. 
A straight road makes a quick journey. 

He spoke convictions and not opinions unto 
us. Opinion is simply mist. Out of mist the 
sunbeams smite rivers speeding down to the 
sea. Opinion dreams ; conviction affirms. 
Conviction builds bridges, drops ships into the 
deep, lights cannon, and creates institutions. 
A little of Bible doctrine, a little of Christian 
Science, a little of Theosophy, and a little of 
Faith-healing leave one in the fog. Peter be- 
came truly great when he turned away from 
opinions about Jesus Christ, and eloquently 
uttered conviction in "Thou art the Christ, the 
Son of the living God" ; and when he said this, 
Jesus gave him the keys. Conviction opens 
locked doors. It will always be so. 



UNSEEN BECOME THE SEEN 43 

The world does not outgrow Jesus the 
Christ. All science is on trial. The book on 
science written yesterday is rewritten to-day. 
Let the scientists tell us what we are to hold in 
the world of the senses before we reconstruct 
our theologies. Instead of bettering the Ser- 
mon on the Mount, the world has not yet 
caught a good glimpse of it. 

He was not one-sided. Bacon was inductive, 
Aristotle deductive, Copernicus studied the 
heavens, Newton became the apostle of gravi- 
tation, and Professor Morse put messages on 
trembling wires ; but the Son of man enters all 
fields in which we may be and do. He spoke 
about God ; and therefore whose God is like our 
God? He spoke about man, and saw dignity 
in even his prostration. He spoke about 
heaven, and we hear sounds from afar that 
have music in them. He spoke about hell, and 
he who proclaims danger ahead may be re- 
garded not up to date, but he stands by the 
God-man who saw the lightning flashes on the 
sky of transgression. 

He was born to teach us the worth of silence. 
There are many kinds of silence, and among 
them are they of sympathy and helpfulness. 
"But he answered her not a word." God of- 
ten answers us not a word when he would give 
Himself to us. He was silent before accusa- 
tion that it might talk itself to death. 



44 BETHLEHEM BELLS 

He made truth a pathway to an end. The 
end He lifted beyond man to reach, is Christ- 
like character. Truth has no power to regen- 
erate, and imparts no strength to the self-act- 
ing powers of the soul to grapple with sin and 
be victorious. Christian service is not a dry 
morality, but an outburst of passion in the 
struggle for light and heaven. Glorious im- 
mortality transforms existence into life. 
Hence courage. Why? The most of man's 
life lies concealed in the mighty Beyond. On- 
ward and upward ! So ! How poor, however, 
is each day of a man's life ! God graciously 
puts it into the crucible of night, and makes it 
the morning, and we start again. 

So a merry Christmas to all, and all hail, 
Star of Bethlehem ! 



THE END 



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